


Nobody Ever Looks in the Baxter Building

by pyroblaze18 (kultiras)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bodyswap, Community: trope_bingo, First Kiss, Fix-It, M/M, The Baxter Building is not Avengers Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kultiras/pseuds/pyroblaze18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who knew a body swap could fix everything?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Ever Looks in the Baxter Building

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: bodyswap, for my [trope_bingo](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org) card. 
> 
> With much thanks to [msraven](http://archiveofourown.org/users/msraven/pseuds/msraven) for all of the cheerleading and help!

Clint woke up to sunlight shining brightly on his face, something that was normally impossible. He had done a pretty good job of setting up his room so that the sunlight never affected his sleep and, unless he was sleeping at really odd hours, the light never even landed on his bed. His bed…which, he realized, he wasn’t actually in. Because this definitely wasn’t his bed, and this wasn’t a room he’d even seen before. Looking around in confusion, Clint rolled out of bed—stumbling momentarily in the process while he rubbed his eyes—and wandered into the bathroom. He decided to call Nat once he was more awake, to figure out how the hell he ended up wherever he was.

But when he entered the bathroom, he did a double take. Because he wasn’t looking at his face in the mirror, he was looking at Coulson’s. And that should have been impossible since Loki had killed him. In short, Clint’s morning had just gotten a hell of a lot weirder.

Clint finished up in the bathroom and quickly searched the bedroom for both a phone and clothes he could change into. He found the clothes first, got dressed, exited the bedroom and found himself in the hallway of what appeared to be a decent sized apartment of some sort. A little further exploration finally turned up a burner phone, charging in the kitchen.

Grabbing the phone, he dialed his own cell and waited for someone to answer it. All things considered, Clint really wasn’t surprised when he heard his own voice on the other end say, “Hello?”

“Coulson?” he guessed, “Is that you?”

“Yes…”

“This is Barton. Listen, before you say anything else, I need you to say a specific phrase. I swear I’ll explain in a sec, but can you just say, ‘Activate Privacy Mode’?”

“…Activate Privacy Mode,” Phil said hesitantly. It all made more sense when a familiar voice announced, “Privacy Mode is now active,” in response. Somehow, he realized, he was on Stark’s property, and Barton knew enough about that to keep JARVIS from listening in on the rest of their conversation. “Apparently it’s been taken care of.”

Clint took a deep breath and asked, “So…Coulson…do you have something to tell me?”

“Um…” Phil couldn’t think of what to say in response. Truthfully, he had planned on having this conversation in person with all of the Avengers in another day or two, but when faced with the prospect of explaining everything over the phone, his mind just went blank.

“I swear, Coulson, if you say anything about the rumors of your death, I will come over there and…well I probably won’t shoot you. But I will slap you upside the head,” Clint said, forcing his voice to remain level.

“I’m sorry? I’m not actually dead, as you can probably tell. I mean, I’m not sorry that I’m not dead. I’m just sorry that I hadn’t told you that I’m not dead. But I was going to! Tell you I mean. And I’m just going to shut up now, because this would have been so much easier in person,” Coulson said, finally cutting himself off.

“Well, considering we seem to have swapped bodies, meeting wouldn’t be a bad idea, Coulson.” And as an added bonus, it would allow Clint to see that Phil really was alive with his own eyes.

“So do you want to come back here so we can figure out what happened to us?”

“If I come to the tower looking like you, A) everyone is going to know you’re alive, B) everyone’s going to know something’s up with us, and C) I probably wouldn’t even make it back to my room, because JARVIS will trigger an alarm, and then I’ll have to wait while Stark conducts a bunch of questionable tests on me. You. Us. You know what I mean.”

“So I’ll come to you then. It’s easier for me to leave, and I know exactly where you are right now. Because we really do need to figure this out, and I really do want to talk to you in person, too,” Phil said.

“Yeah, I’ll make coffee or something while I wait. How long will it take for you to get here?”

“Not long at all. You’re really not that far right now. They moved me back to New York City last week, after I cleared the last round of medical tests,” Phil replied.

“Seriously? You’ve been in the city for more than a day and Tony hasn’t figured it out yet?” Clint asked incredulously.

“Let’s just say I’ve been staying in a place that he would never think to check. And on that note, I’m going to get ready and come over.”

“Alright, I’ll see you in a bit.”

*~*~*~*

Phil heard a group of people talking as he got off the elevator. He easily picked out Natasha’s voice and Stark’s as well, which left him to assume that the others were the rest of the team. He knew that the team had stayed together after the battle, since Nick had kept him updated as he recovered in the various SHIELD medical facilities and safe houses.

He took a deep breath, and walked quietly down the hallway, aiming for the elevator that would let him leave the Avengers’ floors (what had previously been Stark’s personal floors) and leave the building as well. He barely made it a few feet before he heard Tony yell, “Clint! Team meeting about the thing. C’mon, we’ve been brainstorming without you, since you were too busy sleeping to join us for breakfast.”

Phil hesitated before replying, “I actually have somewhere to be, but I’ll try to get back asap.”

“What? What could possibly be more important than a series of freak incidents happening across the country?” Banner asked. 

“That’s need-to-know,” Phil answered.

“I haven’t heard anything from SHIELD about a mission,” Natasha said suspiciously.

“Yeah no. You’re staying,” Stark said. “JARVIS, lock down the elevators.”

Before Phil could protest, Captain Rogers interrupted to say, “Tony, that’s not necessary. Clint, is it really that important?”

Phil took a deep breath and prayed that he didn’t stumble over his words as he addressed Captain America this time. “Cap, you have _no_ idea.”

“Alright fine,” Tony said.

“Just keep your phone on you in case we need to assemble,” Captain Rogers said.

“Will do,” Phil replied, and he hurried to the elevator to make his escape.

*~*~*~*

When someone finally knocked on the door, Clint barely spared a minute to look out of the peephole before he opened it. “That really was pretty fast,” he told Phil as he shut the door after him, “You didn’t have to knock out any guards on your way up?”

“No, Barton, I didn’t have to fight my way up. The security at the Baxter Building isn’t as tough to hack as JARVIS to begin with,” Phil answered with a smirk.

Clint just stared at him. “The Baxter Building.”

“Yes.”

“Headquarters of the Fantastic Four, Baxter Building?”

“One and the same.”

“You’ve been living in the same building as Richards,” Clint asked in horror, “Tony’s never going to let you live that down.”

“I told you he’d never think to look for anything SHIELD-related here,” Phil said with a chuckle, sitting down on the sofa.

“That is true,” Clint acknowledged. “Anyway, we have more important things to talk about, don’t we?” He handed Phil a mug of coffee before sitting down at the other end of the sofa.

“I guess we do,” Phil paused before continuing, “Barton, I’m sorry you found out about everything like this. I was planning on coming to the Tower in a day or two to tell you all the truth in person.”

“What the hell happened, Coulson?”

“I did get stabbed, and I think I was technically dead for almost a minute. But the medical team revived me, got me stabilized, and used a few different kinds of SHIELD-authorized tech to fix me up.”

“Phil…,” Clint said in a horrified voice.

“Everything’s looking okay though,” Phil said in a reassuring voice. “I passed the last of Medical’s many tests, and they think in another few weeks I should be cleared to at least return to work for light duty.”

“Dammit Phil!” Clint yelled at him.

Phil was stunned at his outburst, “Barton?” 

“You didn’t have to go through all of that alone! We haven’t been _that_ busy since we became a team—we could have helped you. _I_ could have helped you,” Clint exclaimed.

“Clint,” Phil whispered, setting his coffee aside. 

“We’ve done fine without you, Phil,” Clint replied in a calmer voice, “But nothing’s been the same. I’m used to hearing your voice in my ear, not Stark’s.”

“Clint.”

“I’ve missed you, you know? I didn’t realize how much time we spent together until you were gone,” Clint said quietly.

“I’ve missed you too,” Phil replied, scooting closer to Clint. “It’s been too quiet, and I haven’t exactly spent time with anyone I could really talk to.”

“Phil, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I wanted to…I just…it was all so complicated. And I know we were friends, but I was still your boss, Clint, and I just… I didn’t think I had the right to,” Phil explained, looking down at his hands.

“We were friends,” Clint agreed, putting down his empty coffee mug, “And you always had the right to tell me, to ask for help.” He reached out and grabbed Phil’s hand and pulled him into a hug. “I’m glad you’re alive though, Phil. I’m really glad you’re here.”

Phil hugged him back, and tightened his grip as he heard Clint’s words. He pulled away slowly, but still stayed leaning against Clint. “I think…I think I may have been in love with you for a long time now. It seems silly that I didn’t notice something like that…but there it is,” he said, with a small smile.

Clint smiled back at him, “I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you for ages as well.”

The words had barely left his lips before there was a whooshing sensation and a bright flash of light. When their vision finally cleared, they found themselves back in their own bodies, still sitting next to one another on the sofa.

“That was all it took?” Clint asked in surprise.

“I guess so,” Phil answered, “And here I thought it would take a kiss to set things right.”

“This isn’t a fairy tale, Phil.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But you have to admit, it would have made sense.”

Clint chuckled and just pulled Phil closer. “Oh, come here, you,” he said as he leaned in to kiss Phil.

It may not have broken the spell, but as far as first kisses went, it was pretty perfect.

And it remained perfect, at least until Clint’s phone began ringing and making assorted noises. The two of them broke apart and looked at the phone.

“Are you assembling?” Phil asked.

“No, it looks like they just want me back at the Tower. Nat says there’s some sort of bodyswapping epidemic—which we clearly already knew about, Steve says they really do need me for the meeting, and Tony says blowing off a team meeting to go to the Baxter Building is unacceptable.”

“So…”

“So I think we should grab your things, and head back to Avengers Tower. Let everyone know you’re alive, and join them for the team meeting.. And after that, we can try and get away and actually finish this conversation.”

“And do we tell them about the solution to the bodyswapping?”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll figure it out on their own eventually,” Clint replied with a smile. He leaned in to kiss Phil quickly once more, before he got to his feet. He pulled Phil to his feet after him and said, “We should probably head over there soon. I wouldn’t put it past them to show up here otherwise.”

Phil laughed and said, “Now why does that not surprise me?”

“Because you actually know us?”

Phil chuckled as he gathered up some of his things from the apartment. They could always send someone to pick up the rest of it later, especially since most of his things were in storage anyway. For now, he and Clint took a final look around and headed towards the door. One last kiss later, they were out the door, heading back to Avengers Tower and what promised to be an interesting team meeting. 

 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> As I’m sure you all know, the [AO3 Auction](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/) on tumblr is almost over. There’s still time to get in some last bids on your favorite authors. So give the [author list](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/authorlist) a look, since there are some amazing authors to bid on. 
> 
> (And if you’re so inclined, my page is here: [kultiras](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/kultiras).)


End file.
